Memories
by The Perfect Bad Example
Summary: It seems like everything is finally fine for R and Julie. But when a stranger comes to the city, R finds himself remembering things from his past- including his sister and his death. Will anything stay the same? (rating may change)
1. Intro and Ch1

A/N: I don't own anything

This is my first Warm Bodies fic, so please review

(R's POV)

**PROLAUGE- Stranger**

Julie and I walked along the streets, hand-in-hand. For some reason, John Grigio, the leader and Julie's father, had called us to the Market Square, a small trading place at the center of the newly rebuilt town. Though small, it was a very open place. Most newcomers were ushered to it to be shown living areas near it.

When I saw the General, I knew it wasn't going to be good. Many people had gathered in the square, and were casting glances around toward a cart. Standing beside it was John, and it front of him seemed to be another person, but as for who, that was unknown.

Julie pulled away from me and walked over to her dad, a hostile look on her face. I followed, a bit more cautious.

Standing there, facing John and Julie, was a... strange girl. She wore a tattered red plaid shirt that went halfway to her waist then stopped and tied, revealing a dark gray undershirt, long, faded, ripped jeans, smeared with dark blood, some which was fresh, and a black leather jacket. Her hair was dark and messy and her eyes were a strange blue color.

I quietly stepped beside Julie.

"I'm going to ask you again," said the General tensely. "Who. Are. You?"

The girl picked up an apple off of the cart and tossed it in her hands. "I have a lot of names." She stopped tossing the apple and stared at John. Her eyes were a vivid shade of pale, exquiste blue. The really pale kind. The nice kind. "How could I choose just one?"

John glared at her. "Then whats your last name?"

The girl shrugged, her white skin so white that it almost glowed silver in the sunlight. "Don't use it."

John glared at her angrilly. Sighing, the girl put down the apple, saying, "Call me RZ. That's what everyone does."

"RZ?" questioned John.

The girl, RZ, nodded. "It's moreso a buisness name, but I might say that this has turned into buisness. I've got the bear," she said to John, "Goldilocks," she said with a leer at Julie, "And-" she stopped when she saw me, her smirk fading.

RZ stared at me, her eyes looking at my face, on my cheek. Whatever color she had in her face drained out, leaving it whiter than white. "How'd you get that scar?" she asked, nodding to my cheek.

Curious, I raised my hand to feel my cheek. There was a scar on it. I don't think I got it as a corpse, maybe in my life before. I shrugged in response.

But RZ looked completely fazed. She turned around and said as she did, "I have to go." And took off at a quick walk down the street, the crowds dispersing around her.

Is it just me, or did anyone else notice that she still had an apple in her other hand.

But the clearing was now silent. I'll admit, it was strange. But whatever, whoever that girl, RZ, was, she's gone now.

**CH.1- Memories**

I went ot bed that night dreading something, I just didn't know what.

When I blinked open my eyes, I knew I wasn't still in my bed. I was in a sort of hospital, and a younger girl was at my side.

I looked down at her. She had messy dark hair, similar to my own, with vivid blue eyes. I could see tears shining in them, and she was shaking like she was scared.

Curious, I looked over to a mirror. I was staring at myself, at the same age I was now. I wore a brown t-shirt and jeans, and the girl beside me wore a blue shirt, jeans, and black combat boots.

I was in my memories, and it was like I was watching things from my own perspective. I tugged on the girls hand, and she looked up at me. "Come on," I said, smiling. Somehow, in this mind, I knew she was my little sister. And that she was thirteen. And that she was the most devious girl I knew. The tears in her eyes made no sense.

I walked over to the lady at the front desk and said quietly, "We're here to see Mrs. Bones."

The lady nodded understandingly and led me down the hall, stopping in front of a door and opening it. Inside was like a viewing room. A table was in the glass-seperated wall, on the other side, and everything over there was white.

"I'll get her," said the lady, and I nodded thanks.

A few seconds later, the door in the white room opened and a pale lady with hair so blonde that it was practically white stood there. A nurse guided her over to the table and sat her down, muttering words to her.

As soon as the lady was gone, I pulled my sister over to the door that seperated the rooms. I opened it and ushered her inside, closing the door behind us.

For a moment, the little girl stared at the woman. "Mommy?" she choked out.

The woman looked up, her eyes frantic. She couldn't respond to us, and the girl knew that. She was mental. She didn't understand.

But I walked past the girl and sat on the other end of the table, across from the lady. The little girl sat down beside me, her eyes never leaving the lady.

"Don't worry," I said, "She cuffed to the table. She can't freak out."

The girl nodded, swallowing. For a while, we all just sat there, letting everything fall into our minds. Then a nurse opened the door behind us and said, "Visiting hours are now over."

I nodded to her and ushered the little girl out of the room. We walked past the lobby without saying a word, and when we exited, I took one look back.

There, in bright letter on the front of the building, were the words: St. Morell's Hopital For The Mentally Ill.

So that lady was mentally ill.

I walked over to an old dark car and opened it. I sat in the driver's seat, and the girl sat across from me. "R?" she asked as I started driving.

"Yeah, Zoe?" I asked.

"What's wrong with her?" she asked. "Why's Mommy like that?"

She was thirteen and she still said 'Mommy'. I found that weird, but I said nothing. After all, this was the first time she was meeting her. "Because," I said, not looking at her, "Some bad things happened to her."

"But what is bad enough to make her like... like that?"

"There are a lot of things that can drive a person mad," I told her, still refusing to glance at her.

"But who would do that to her?"

I felt my hands tighten on the steering wheel. My voice was tight as I answered. "Dad."

Zoe was silent. She didn't say a word for the rest of the ride home, which was stange for her. At last, when we about ten minutes away and stuck in a traffic light that refused to turn, she talked again.

"What's Dad like?"

I didn't respond.

"What's Dad like?" she repeated.

"You expect me to know?" I snapped at her. I felt bad right after I had done it, but I was just so tense.

Zoe shrugged. "Your older, and he must have been around at least twice."

"How do you get that?"

"Because we're siblings, not half-brother-and-sister. So you must have met him at least once."

"No," I said. "Never."

Zoe turned to face me, curious. "How?"

I was getting tired of this conversation, and was mentally willing the light to move. "Because I just haven't!"

Zoe thankfully shut up after that. It was... mostly true. I had seen 'Dad' once. It hadn't been a nice encounter though. I had been coming home from school and when I came in the house, I heard people yelling in the living room, and one was crying.

I had gone to see. Standing there was my mother, in tears. Beside her was a person who I had a blurry memory of. I knew there were tall and skinny. Very tall, and very skinny. I knew that they had messy dark hair, and blue eyes so vivid you could see it from a mile away.

But the thing I remembered the most is how soulless those eyes were. How cruel. How cold, like ice.

When my mom saw me, she told the stranger off. That was the last I ever saw of him.

The next day we had to go shopping. The plague of zombies had spread to the outskirts of the city, and we needed to collect supplies while we still could.

I pulled back into the driveway of our house, the car seeming to bend under the weight of everything. I stopped it and opened the doors, jumping out of the truck. Zoe was right behind me, and I opened the back to reveal the supplies.

I handed Zoe two plastic bags and grabbed about seven myself. Zoe went inside the house while I did. Noticing something seemed to be off, I walked a bit out in the yard looking for something. Nothing.

I turned around and looked back into the house. My blood ran cold at what I saw.

The door was cracked open, obviously it had been forced. And Zoe had gone inside.

My suspicions were confirmed when a blood curtling scream rang out from the house.

I dashed over and ran inside, stopping at what I saw.

Zoe was in the living room that looked into the kitchen. Her bags had dropped to the floor. Standing a few yards away was a huge Boney. Behind it was a smaller Boney and one...two...three zombies.

My future concience recognized one as M.

"Zoe," I said, "Back. Away. Slowly."

She stood there for another moment, staring into the eyes of the Boney, before taking half a step back.

And the Boney lunged.

I knocked it out of the way just in time, screaming at Zoe, "Run! RUN!"

She followed my orders and ran out of the door. From then on, we lived as roamers in a black truck.

A few nights after the attack, as we were resting in the car one night, Zoe asked. "I know you know what Dad was like."

She just couldn't let it rest!

"Yeah," I said, "But it's not something you need to know."

"Tell me," she snapped.

I rolled my eyes. "Dad is the... well, he works in the Mafia. And in gangs. He does drugs, distributes drugs, and is addicted to drinks. Things like that."

Zoe seemed satisfied. For now.


	2. Those Who Don't Agree

A/N: I own nothing

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. My computer broke and we had to get it fixed. I promise I'll update a lot sooner from now on to make it up to everyone who likes my story. FYI- the more reviews I get, the faster I type.

Also, I changed the POV to third person. Yeah, first-person really isn't my thing, so… enjoy!

Sincerely,

_ The Perfect Bad Example _

R woke the next morning with a start. Shaking partially, he sat up on the edge of the bed in his few-week-old apartment. He mulled over his thoughts in the dark room, only occasionally casting wary glances at the curtain-blocked window or bedroom door, which looked like one from a horror movie as the shadows and flickers of light played around on the dark oak wood.

Had that dream been real? Did he just feel bad about not beginning to remember his past like the other corpses and his mind just go off and start creating the past he wanted?

But, the other side of his mind fought back, if you made them up just to please yourself, then why not create a happier past?

He agreed with the second one better. A happier past would have been a lot better than one with a missing, criminal father, a psychotic mother, and a little sister who was scarred on her face…

The smile that had appeared on his face then disappeared. In all of his… visions he hadn't seen the little girl with a large red scar diagonal across her right eye. Did that maybe mean that he did remember his past, but it just needed triggers?

He hoped so. And, in despite of his confused mood, smiled.

Two hours later, R and Julie were walking down the street towards the main square. Today, the streets seemed twice as packed. When R asked Julie if she knew why, she said, "My father's just announced that he's going to bring down the wall."

"Bring down the wall?" R asked in a form of shocked excitement, as it seemed a bit too good to be true.

"Yeah," said Julie with a smile. "My dad seems to finally have accepted that the corpses are changing back." She seemed truly excited by the fact.

R gave a small nod. "That's good," he said.

Julie smiled wider in agreement. Just as fast as the smile had widened, it disappeared. "Yeah," she said in a dark voice, "Maybe we'll all start acting less split up now." On the last few words, she cast a glance to the side of the road, where an old brick building stood. Shadowed by the overhanging roof were a group of three guys. Each of them were glaring and muttering at a former corpse who was standing at a fruit cart a few steps away, waiting patiently as the merchant took some of the fruits and put them into a small brown sack. When the merchant finished, he tied the brown sack at the top and handed it to the former corpse.

The corpse smiled as he took the brown sack, grabbling with it for a second before he was able to fasten his still grayish fingers around the neck of the sack. Smiling wider, he took the sack and began rummaging around in his pockets for money. His smile turned into a concentrated frown and the couple could hear the rustling and clinging of bills and coins in his pocket. He pulled his hand out, and the coins and bills clattered onto the ground with clings and echoing rattles. The former corpse attempted to bend down and pick them up, but he wasn't het as flexible as he should be. He only managed to reach halfway down.

R was about to walk over the few steps separating them and help the older corpse, but a young girl beat him to it. She had cropped blond hair, an oval face, and pale brown eyes. She smiled at the man as she handed the money to him from the ground. Still smiling at the man, she stood and helped him count out the correct amount for his groceries.

Julie turned away from the two back to R. "Okay," she said, "maybe we don't need to change as much as I thought. But," she cast a glowering look at the three men, who were almost straight to their side now. They would pass them any second, "some," she said, "still could change."

R nodded in agreement as they walked past the men.

"-And just freely letting those corpses right in here," the first man was snapping to the others, who nodded in agreement.

"I agree," said the shortest, stockiest man. "Those corpses aren't going to change. They're just disguising themselves so they can get closer to their prey!"  
"And now we're just letting them in!" snapped the first again, abhorrence in his tone. "That Grigio is going numb in the mind, if you ask me…"

A small crowd had now gathered around the three men. Now around nine or ten stood there, all nodding and muttering in agreement to the first man's words. Three of them had hooded faces. Both Julie and R stopped and watched the group from a few paces away.

One of the newcomers then said, "And it's not just Grigio! He's got the whole city convinced those creatures are turning back!"

"Oh don't sugarcoat it," said the second man, "they're monsters. Calling them that isn't an insult, it's the truth!"

The others all nodded in agreement. R couldn't see all the way to the back of the small crowd, but he thought he saw one of the hooded ones not nod in agreement to the man's words.

"If you ask me," said the hooded person in front, a tall, gangly man with a hooked nose that came out from the front of his gray hood. "A lot of it must have to do with that traitor gal… Julianne or Julia or something."

"Julie," said the hooded person in the back, the one R though hadn't nodded with the others. "Her name is Julie, and she's Grigio's brat."

R felt anger pulse into his veins that they were now talking about Julie. Guiding her carefully, he shuffled the two of them into the nearest ally to the group, so they could still hear and see the others talking a few yards away.

There was a snort of laughter in the group. "Yeah, her," said the man in the gray hoodie who had spoken before.

"But what's she got to do with all of this?" asked the girl who had told the other's Julie's name.

All of them gave a bout of laughter. "New around here, are you," said the first man, clapping the girl in the hood on the back, making her flinch and lower her face.

"Well," he continued, disgust in his voice, "Apparently the Grigio brat let herself be captured by a defenseless weirdo from the airport zombie hive. Let him take her right back there! Into the hive!"

"Why didn't she, I don't know, kill him or something?" asked the girl in an awkward voice.

"No idea," said a man with a British accent. "S'pose she just didn't feel like it, ya know. Being Grigio's daughter and all, she must have thought she was better than anything and anyone else." He gave a small chuckle. "Even a brainless brain-eater."

"Go on," said the girl to the first man then.

"Yeah, so, bit o' day's later she turns up without a word, sayin' things went a bit wrong and she got separated in the lab."

"Makes sense," said the girl.

"Whatever. So her zombie friend must have snuck in, 'cuz then there's all this word that Bonies are coming to attack us 'cuz they're not happy we've been changin' their brainwashed corpse army back to life. Sure enough, they attacked. And now," the man's voice grew louder in his rage, "Grigio is thinkin' those mutants are on our side just 'cuz they fought with us against the damn Bonies!"

"But," said the girl, "If they fought with you, and not against you, against their own brothers-"

"You mean 'oppressors'," said one of the girls in the group. "Last rumor I heard is that the Bonies were like the big bad leaders to the corpses."

"Well," said the man, "It makes since, those damn brainless corpses couldn't think a word to themselves, could they? Or this would have happened a lot sooner!"

The second man shrugged. He turned to the group. "Reggie forgets," he said, "that every revolution takes a mutant worthy of hell to start it." Everyone in the group laughed, except for the girl in the black hood who had asked for the story to be retold.

R felt more anger burn in his stomach. The 'mutant worthy of hell' comment had gotten to him.

Then the other hooded man said in a sulky, silky, deep voice. "Yeah. Just like the hell-worthy mutant who created the virus. Curse him and all his offspring. He deserves to suffer slow for all he did. Die begging for mercy in the fire of Hell. The stupid, insolent, idiotic-"

The man never got to finish his sentence. He was suddenly pinned in a reverse headlock against the brick wall near Julie and R, who jumped back in surprise. There, holding him to the wall with her arm on the bottom of his throat and a sleek dagger pressed against his Adam's apple, her hood having fallen off in the rush of her actions, was RZ.


	3. The Apple

A/N: I don't own anything, except any names you don't recognize.

Sorry this chapter was a bit shorter, I just thought that was the perfect place to end it. I promise I'll start writing super long chapters to make up for it! Compared to the last chapter, this was almost seven hundred words less.

Sincerely,

_The Perfect Bad Example_

R stared at the girl in awe and utter shock. Something inside him that he didn't yet understand clicked as he stared at RZ, who was still holding the dagger to the man's neck. She looked absolutely ferocious, her exquisitely pale, bright blue eyes seeming to stare into the man's very soul. Her dark black hair was pulled into a ponytail, revealing even bangs that hung on her forehead, and it seemed as though she straightened her hair. The look made her seem twice as less intimidating and almost… smaller.

"Listen here," she whispered coolly, almost emotionlessly to the man, "You seem smart; and smart people don't usually anger assassins."

"You think your scaring me," he hissed at her through gritted teeth.

RZ shrugged. "No," she said, but her eyes hardened into arctic icicles. "But just remember what I am. I know you. I know where you live. Hell, I know your family."

"You're bluffing," he stuttered to her, only half fiercely, as if he was still struggling to believe that himself.

RZ smiled- an expression that seemed worthy of the devil himself. "Well, I know you," she said. "I know your second wife- the first one died in a fire, right?- and your dead son, he died after he went into the forest two years ago, am I correct? You and your second wife live on Patten Road, just two blocks from here, in the big cream house with brown roofing that's all faded. So go ahead, tell me I'm wrong."

But the man was silent. He was still staring at her in a mix of fear, awe, and shock as she leaned back and released him from the brick wall. Gasping, he stumbled away from her and ran into the street.

The crowd insulting the corpses had disappeared too. Now it was just the three of them as rain began to softly pour from the pale gray, overcast clouds hanging in the sky. Only after a few seconds did RZ seem to notice them.

"Oi, Goldilocks, whatcha doin' round here with this crowd?" she asked, crossing her arms. The dagger had disappeared from her hands, and R suspected it was somewhere in her black cotton jacket, or maybe the leather one she had over it.

"I could ask you the same thing," said Julie coolly in return, crossing her own arms.

The other girl shrugged. "Has Goldilocks got a problem?" she asked in a false sweet voice, raising an eyebrow.

Julie just continued to glare at her.

"So it's an attitude problem!" said RZ with realization in her voice. She put her hand to her heart, faking relief. "Thank goodness, I thought it was a mental problem!"

Julie then seemed to lose part of her cool. "Mental? Me?" Then her own bout of realization crossed her face. "Of course, you agree with those scum!"

"You mean the guys who just ran away?" asked RZ.

"Who else," snapped Julie sarcastically.

RZ laughed. "I don't run with them," she said with a smirk.

Julie put on a look of authority. "Good."

RZ shrugged and pretended to look a bit fazed. "What, you're not gonna go all 'president's daughter' on me, are you?" She smirked at the end.

Julie just continued to leer at her. "Maybe I will," she snapped coldly.

RZ shrugged again, it seemed almost like a habit for her. "Cool. Gonna call the guards to arrest me now? Betcha I'd be out in say… minute and a half?"

RZ smiled, but Julie kept the cold mask. "Not even the top criminal in the world could do that, or the most highly trained assassin."

"Then you've never met me," she said. R blinked, and RZ was gone. All that was left was one strange thing that Julie didn't even seem to notice.

"Grr!" she growled, her arms stiffening by her side. R could easily imagine the mist rising off the ground to be steam coming off her in her anger, but he never took his eyes off the thing the 'assassin' had left.

With one unintelligible, muttered, grumbled word, Julie turned around on her heel and stormed off down the alleyway, and it was as if R could feel the red-hot anger still pulsing off of her at RZ's words.

Surprisingly for once, R didn't follow her immediately. He stayed behind for a second; still staring at the strange possession she had chosen to leave behind. He traveled back into his memory, matched the item, and grinned suddenly.

Still grinning slightly, R turned around to follow Julie back to somewhere warm, and hopefully somewhere dry too, and it was almost as if the grin was plastered to his face, irremovable, as he caught up to her.

Sitting in a puddle where RZ had stood was a shiny, red apple.


	4. The Invitation

A/N: I own nothing... except any unrecognizable names that don't ring a bell.

**Katiex11** : I wish I could hear your theory, and I'm sure it would be pretty close, 'cuz I think I have an idea of what it is. I won't spoil anything though...

Sincerely,

_The Perfect Bad Example_

R followed Julie down the alleyways, keeping a safe few steps behind her, as she was still fuming with anger from the encounter with RZ. R could see why, but he didn't offer any words to Julie. He felt that she would get over it in a few minutes, just a few minutes to let it get out of her system. He could not have been more wrong.

By the time they reached the end of the dark brick alleyway, rain still falling down softly from above, Julie had begun ranting about the other girl in an angry, too-loud voice that R didn't seem to hear.

"-as if she knows what any of it was like! She was probably hiding out in her own little safe house while we were all struggling to get by! The nerve of her..."

R found himself unable to join in, or put any comments out that Julie wouldn't shoot him for saying. In his opinion, Julie was overreacting. RZ had been vaguely taunting her, and Julie had just risen to it. It seemed like it was more so both their faults. That wasn't anything Julie would want to hear right now though, so every time she stopped to breathe or paused for a response, R would just mutter things like: 'Yeah', 'Agreed', and 'Completely!' Julie didn't even seem to notice his lack of attention though.

Small droplets of rain were still falling from the sky, and through Julie's rant, they became a thousand times more interesting. After all, Julie seemed too preoccupied to notice the faraway look in his blue eyes.

By the time they reached the mansion where Julie and her father, General Grigio, lived, R had become tired of the outbursts. Trying to change the subject to something else, R said, "Maybe we should tell your dad about those people."

Julie stopped and looked at him, and then R realized that he had cut her off mid-sentence. "Sorry-" he began, but Julie cut him off then.

"No, no," she said, looking at the wet pavement, "We need to tell my dad about those guys by the ally. They might turn into a real problem."

Finally something he could agree on. As Julie began to walk toward the mansion-like house a little faster, he said, "I wonder why they think that."

"I don't know," said Julie, "But do you remember how many there were. I think they might turn into a big problem. There's probably a lot more out there who might agree with them. If we put it out now, it won't have time to spread."

Suddenly R heard a small ruffle under his foot. Julie didn't notice, but R bent down and picked up a small piece of paper. She only stopped a few feet away from him when he said, "Then we better put it out quick."

Half startled, half curious, Julie walked over to R and looked over his shoulder to see the soaked piece of paper.

**ANTI-ACCEPTANCE ACT**

**Do you really think Zombies should rejoin society?**

**Do you really trust that the wall should be taken down?**

**Do you really agree that 'the change' is permanent?**

_If you answered 'no' to any of these, then you should join the Anti-Acceptance Association to prevent the Corpses to rejoin our protected society. We invite anyone who wants to join to meet with the great founders of this protection act and stand against the nightmare that is sure to restart if the wall goes down._

_If you wish to know more, then follow the address at the bottom of the page to enjoy the first meet and ensure the protection of our beloved city._

**Location:** _1034 Stadium Lane, West 94th Street_

** Time:** _The First Meet will be held on Thursday the 24th_

For a moment, Julie and R just stared at the small piece of paper. Then Julie broke the silence by saying, "C'mon. We need to talk to my dad now. This meeting is supposed to happen tomorrow!"

Julie snatched the paper from his hands and quickly began to walk towards the large house, R right beside her. Together, they walked through the doors, soaking wet from the rain, and down the hall. Once they had reached the large oak door that shielded General Grigio's office Julie didn't even bother to knock. She gripped the brass doorknob and jerked it open quickly in a rush to get inside. As soon as the door burst open and she appeared in the doorway, General Grigio looked up and frowned.

"What?" he asked, "Is so important that you must make a grand entrance to my private office soaking wet and disturb my work?" As he said it, he put away his pen and took the paper he had been writing on and placed it into a basket to his side that held many other white, yellow, and red lined papers.

"This," Julie said, walking forward and placing the small piece of paper down on her father's desk. As she did, R stepped into the room and stood beside her.

As soon as he saw the title he stood up and grabbed the sheet of paper. Julie then began retelling how they had found it as the General read over the paper, seemingly multiple times. "-and it was just sitting on the road in a puddle," she finished when he looked up at her expectantly.

"I would think," He said, "that these had been out for a while. Just considering that the date is a bit last minute. But this seems to be new paper… as if it were printed just hours ago…" he trailed off.

"Maybe," said R, and both of them looked at him, "A lot of people wanted them… or lost them… or maybe it was just a last minute date to throw off any… party crashers?"

Julie smiled. "Probably one of those," she said, turning to her father. "So what are you going to do?"

"Right now," said the General, "Nothing." And he sat back down in his chair as if to prove the point.

"Nothing?" repeated Julie in shock, then in anger she said, "_Nothing_!" The General looked up at her as she continued. "How could you just do nothing? They're forming a rally or something! You have to… you can't just…" But she faltered and her voice died away. Angrily, she turned around and swept out of the room.

R cast one last glance at General Grigio, who had gone back to his paper, before hurrying out to catch Julie. He found her in her room with the door open, sitting on the bed.

He walked in quietly and sat down beside her. She looked up from her lap as he sat down on the bed beside her.

"Guess the romance story has a few bad guys," she said.

R smiled. "Every story has bad guys." As he said it, something tugged at the back of his mind- a distant memory he couldn't quite recall, but it was as if he had said that same thing before. It felt like it.

"I guess you're right," said Julie with a downcast sigh. Then her eyes hardened. "I bet I know who's gonna be there," she said darkly.

"Who?" asked R cautiously, even though he knew the answer before she had even said it.

"RZ."


	5. The Second Night

A/N: I own nothing… unless it is something completely unrecognizable.

Please review! This is my longest chapter so far and took me a long time to write. If you have any theories, then put them in a review, I'd love to hear them.

Sincerely,

_The Perfect Bad Example _

R shrugged, as if trying to repel the comment from his ears and keep it from getting to him. "Yeah," he said, "...maybe..."

"I wonder what she even thinks she's doing here," said Julie, "That RZ character. It's not as if she's good news to anyone. Probably just here to join up with those Anti-whatever idiots."

"I don't know," said R slowly, "If she really wanted to join their group, then why did she ask to hear our story. Shouldn't she have known it already?"

Julie shrugged, little whisps of her loose blonde hair falling over her shoulders at the movement. "I don't know," she admitted, "All I know is that she's bad news."

R felt a little rush of anger inside him, but he wasn't sure why. "How do you know that?" he asked. "You haven't exactly met her, have you?"

"No," she said slowly, turning to him, "Are you defending her?"

R shrugged. "Maybe I am," he snapped, the rush of anger finally getting to him. "So what?"

Julie continued to stare at him though, making him feel a bit uncomfortable. "R, do you think… do you think she might be…" Julie trailed off, then looked away.

"Might be what?" R asked.

"Never mind," said Julie, a bit too quickly. She hopped off the bed and looked down at him. "Forget I said anything."

"What do you mean?" R asked, standing up too, "She might be what?"

"I don't know," said Julie with an unusual shrug of her shoulders, causing more of her loose blonde hair to fall onto her back. "I was just brainstorming aloud."

"Uh-huh," said R in a tone that told her he didn't believe her.

Julie then yawned. "Well, I'm tired," she said, "And we've got a long day tomorrow."

"Why?" asked R.

"Because," she said, shepherding him to the door, "We have to sneak into that meeting for the Triple A's."

"The Triple A's?" A new voice said from down the hall.

Julie jumped and turned toward it. "Hey, Nora," she said, "C'mon, we've got new things to talk about, including," she said with a glance at R, "The Triple A's, or the Anti-Acceptance Association."

"You think they would have spent a little more time on the name," muttered Nora as she slid past R and followed Julie into her room, closing the door behind her.

As soon as R got to his apartment he collapsed on the bed and fell into sleep almost immediately. He was so tired that he was sure that no mysterious dreams would haunt him that night. Once again, he was so very wrong.

No sooner than when he had closed his eyes he opened them again. There was bright sunlight everywhere, and he appeared (or he guessed by the wooden fence surrounding him) to be in a backyard. A young boy, probably around thirteen or fourteen, was leaning against a large oak tree with wide branches, arms folded casually behind his head. Dark hair sliced across his face, with the longest strands going down to his nose. His eyes were closed peacefully, and the birds chirped happily in the tree branches above him.

Then the sound of a sliding glass door alerted him, and he turned to see a yellow house with two small windows on either side of a sliding glass door with pale brown, velvety curtains. He saw the younger boy open his eyes and look at the door too.

Standing inside the door was a kind looking young woman with older features to her face. Blonde hair tinged slightly with brown colored her head. The hair was thin and pulled back into a ponytail, with bangs hanging off to the side and going down to her chin. Her skin was a tanned sort of pale and her eyes were a calming shade of brown. She was slender and small chested, the thinness shown off with the thin tight sweater she wore with a white undershirt and blue jean Capri's with tennis shoes.

Taking another quick glance at the large oak tree, R realized it must have been the middle of fall, or winter, he didn't know where these strangers lived, but the ladies outfit was explained at least.

"Ryder!" the woman called to the boy, he looked at her, "It's time to go," she said, saying the last part quieter and with a large smile, revealing pretty white teeth. This lady could've been an actress or a model had it not been for the tired look of her.

"Coming, Aunt Heidi," the boy called, pushing himself up off the grass and running slowly to the sliding glass door, which the lady had kindly left open. R ran to catch up.

The boy didn't go inside though. He stood on the rim between inside and outside, looking at the floor with his hand on the sliding glass door to pull it closed. He took a deep breath and then walked inside, closing the door behind him. R's view followed the boy as he did so, and he emerged into a cool living room with one large couch, two chairs, and a rug in the middle that held a coffee table.

The lady, Aunt Heidi, as the boy had called her, was waiting beside the large burgundy couch with a tan jacket hanging on her arm. The boy walked over to her and she said quietly, "Are you sure you don't want a jacket Ryder, it'll be a bit chilly by the time we leave the hospital."

The boy who Heidi had called Ryder nodded tensely. "I'll be fine," he said.

Heidi nodded and turned to the front door, which was opposite of the sliding glass door. She began to walk, but stopped when she realized that Ryder was not following her. "Are you okay?" she asked as she turned around.

The boy nodded tensely again and said to her. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just have to go get something really quick. I'll meet you in the car."

His Aunt smiled graciously at him as if she knew what he was doing and it was something kind. "Alright," she said, putting on an amusing stern look, "But hurry up. I don't want to be too late and miss all the visiting hours."

The boy smiled and as she walked out of the door he muttered something like, "They don't care about visiting hours," and ran up a nearby flight of stairs carpeted in dark blue. He returned a second later carrying a small trinket that looked like a necklace, but R never saw it clearly. A second later he was in the car, watching the boy watch houses zoom by at a fast speed.

Almost half a second later the car stopped in front of a large white building with a lot of windows. For a moment R though they were at the airport before he saw the large sign above them.

**St. Morell's Hospital**

The name rung a bell. Turning to look across the street, R saw a similar but smaller white building, the same one he had seen in his dreams last night. The only major difference between the two was the smaller one had more words on it.

**St. Morell's Hospital for the Mentally Ill**

It seemed a pity, knowing someday in the future, or the present, his mother was in there.

R then turned back towards the two people. Heidi was walking towards the doors confidently and with excitement. Ryder on the other hand was hanging back, shuffling the trinket in his hands. The boy cast a glance backwards, and R felt his heart skip a beat as the boy's eyes landed right on him, and to his shock, the boy smiled. He then turned and dashed toward the doors and began to walk beside Heidi again.

The next moment R was inside the hospital. The lady, Heidi, was talking to the receptionist. R drifted closer to hear what they were saying.

"-Heidi Bones and this is Ryder Caye."

"Caye?" said the receptionist lady with a frown, looking at the boy. "I thought you were here to see your mother?"

Heidi was about to respond but the boy beat her to it. "I am," he said with a note of defiance in his voice, "My mother kept her maiden name. I use my father's."

"Oh," said the receptionist with a mystified voice. "Couldn't know why," she then muttered audibly.

The lady handed them passes a second later and the boy left, muttering under his breath, "To piss off my dad."

The two then climbed onto an elevator and rode up to the fourth floor. The doors beeped as they opened and they walked onto a white floor down to room fifteen, where Heidi stopped. With a clumsy hand, she barely managed to open the door, and the two then stepped inside, leaving R to drift through the closed door.

Laying on a bed was a twin of Heidi, but she look much older and worn out. She gave a strained but happy smile to her two visitors.

"Heidi," she croaked, "Nice to see you." She then looked to the boy. "And Ryder," she said with love in her voice. "Doesn't Mommy get any hugs?"

The boy smiled and walked over to the other woman. He gave her a quick hug before turning to what R had thought to be a table in the corner of the small room. Inside though, he saw, was a small bundle wrapped in cotton-candy pink blankets.

From the other side of the room, he heard Heidi say to the other woman, "How are you, Heather," but he only heard it in the back of his mind. The main part of him was watching the boy as he dug into his pocket and fished something out. R saw it was the necklace. It had a silky black rope string that was somewhere between thick and thin and a large green heart that looked as though it was made from marble or rock, maybe a fusion of the two.

The boy reached down and put the charm necklace onto the middle of the pink bundle. He smiled as he looked down at it, and R felt something rush through him that he couldn't identify.

The boy then carefully placed his hands around the pink bundle and picked it up. He cradled it to his chest and walked over to the two sisters, who were only vaguely talking. The sickly looking one in the hospital bed who Heidi had named as Heather looked up as Ryder neared, R following behind him.

Heather gave Ryder a small, strained smile as he came to the edge of the bed with the small, delicate looking bundle of pink blankets. Ryder looked down at Heather expectantly, and she gave a larger smile. In a croaky voice, she answered his questioning look.

"Ryder, meet you new little sister-"

Just then R shot awake. His heart was pounding and his forehead felt sweaty. He was still in the same wet clothes that he had had on yesterday, but they had dried out during the night. With a growl of frustration R fell back onto the bed, covering his face with his hands to keep the bright sunlight out of his eyes.

Of course, he had to wake up right when he was about to find out the name. Maybe tonight he would have better luck with the visions. Maybe they would even show him something from his own life.


	6. The Plan

A/N: I own nothing...

Katiex11: I'm not saying- that was supposed to be a bit of a cliffhanger, but the answer will be out in the next chapter...

This chapter is a bit short compared to the others, but I wanted a bit of a cliffhanger here, so...

Sincerely,

_The Perfect Bad Example_

_#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%#$%_

With a sigh, R stood up and looked at his alarm clock. In bright numbers it read 10:46 A.M. He had slept a long time.

Half an hour later, R was walking in the front doors of the Grigio's house. Julie had said last night something about sneaking into the Triple A's meeting. It had seemed like a great idea last night when he hadn't put any thought to it, but now he was realizing it seemed a bit crazy. A former corpse going to an anti-former-corpse meeting.

R walked up the carpeted flight of stairs that led up to the second floor. So far, he hadn't seen anyone around the house. That made a bit of sense. General Grigio was probably at the base, and Julie and Nora were probably in Julie's room.

He stopped when he came to the second door. He heard voices inside of Julie's room, and sure enough he identified them as Julie's and Nora's. He knocked on the white door and heard a soft 'it's open' come from the room.

R pushed open the door and walked into Julie's bedroom. Julie was sitting on her bed, leaning against the headboard and Nora was in a chair across the room. R smiled once at Nora before going to sit beside Julie, who smiled at him.

"So," she said, "A little catch-up: I and Nora have been coming up with ideas about how to get us into the meeting tonight."

R felt his stomach drop. He had been sure that Julie would have forgotten the crazy plan of sneaking into the Triple A's meeting. Voicing his thoughts, he said, "You're still going with that?"

Julie smiled. "Uh, yeah," she said with a laugh, "Imagine how boring our lives would be if I didn't come up with crazy plans every time a dangerous situation came along."

Nora nodded acceptingly from her chair across the room. "That's true. I mean, just look at how you met your boyfriend." Both Julie and Nora then laughed, and even R smiled.

"So," he said, turning back to Julie, "What's your crazy plan?"

Julie gave a wide grin. "Alright, my favorite is where, hold it," she said dramatically, "We just _walk in_!"

R smiled. "That's all you've come up with, isn't it."

"Well, yeah," said Nora from across the bedroom. "I mean, you aren't recognizable as a corpse anymore. If we just put you into, like, a dark colored hoodie with the hood over your head, no one will recognize you!"

"Alright," said R, "Then let's go."

At eight o'clock that night, the three of them were sneaking down the street to Stadium Lane. A few other people were slinking in the shadows along the road they were walking along, but they didn't pay anyone any attention.

They were at a small building within minutes. A short line was heading toward a door, where a large man was standing.

"That's a lot of people," said Nora, looking at the long line. R agreed silently in his head. He wasn't able to see any of the former corpses among the crowd. Everyone in line had an excited look on their face, and judging from the glare in Julie's eyes, she saw it too.

Half a minute later they were walking up to the large security guard. "Invitation?" He asked, holding out his large hand.

Julie flushed, and R tilted his head down further. There was a formal invitation?

Nora was prepared though. She said casually, pulling a piece of paper out of her back pocket, "This?" She placed the small piece of paper in the guard's large hand.

He looked down at it with skeptical eyes. R felt his heart begin to thump loudly in his chest. What would happen if they were caught?

The panic only lasted a second before relief flooded over the three as the guard moved out of the way and said, "It's a bit packed, so I'd just stick to the sides."

The trio nodded and quickly walked inside and away from the large, terrifying security guard and down a long, narrow hallway with faded green wallpaper. As they walked along, the sound of excited voices grew louder and louder to a large rate. They neared the end of the long hall and walked into the main room of the building.

They stopped dead when they saw what was inside.

It was a large room- purely humongous. The wall paper was a sickly dull yellow and the floors seemed to just be concrete. It should've seemed to be a shabby, unfinished place, but the large crowd inside said otherwise.

People were packed together and squeezed in the large room. It seemed like over half the city was there at the moment. Over half, maybe even more than that. A large stage was at the very front of the room, and on it stood a cloaked figure with seemingly no face, or they couldn't see it at least, as it was shaded by the black hood.

A large banner hung down from the center of the stage against the wall. In black letters against a white background, it read:

**The**

**Anti-**

**Acceptance**

**Act**

For a moment, the three of them just stared at the stage and the room and the sheer amount of people who had showed up to the rally. They were completely speechless by it, no words able to find their mouths.

Finally after a moment, Julie was able to choke out in a harsh whispery way, "We have to tell my dad about this," she said, motioning with her head to the terrifying amount of people in the large room, filling it to the top. The other two nodded their silent agreement.

Then a voice from beside them leered, "Oh, going to tell Daddy now, are you?"


	7. The Triple A's

A/N: I don't own anything...

Sorry I didn't update for a while- me and my friends went on an awesome last-minute vacation. I hope you like this chapter, and if you do, please tell me in a review. Any guesses on RZ or anything are welcome...

Sincerely,

_The Perfect Bad Example_

_Then a voice from beside them leered, "Oh, going to tell Daddy now, are you?"_

All three heads of the trio shot up in panic at the leering voice, only to see a figure who had already been expected.

"How did I know you'd be here?" grumbled Julie loudly to the other.

They shrugged, eyes unwavering. "Because I'm always everywhere," answered RZ with a smirk.

"Everywhere bad," said Julie, but no one heard it aside from R, as Nora then burst out her own comment.

"Oh, so you're that RZ person!" she exclaimed.

RZ smiled in a dark, smirking way. "That's what most people call me. You must be Goldilocks' friend… Nora, or something?"

Nora stared at her in utter shock as she answered her name correctly. RZ, who had lost the smirk while she talked, brought it up again.

RZ then turned to Julie. "You should be careful about what you give away when you're in the middle of a huge crowd with ears- especially if that crowd has eyes out to kill you."

"Kill me?" asked Julie with shock in her tone, voice vaguely wavering.

"Well, not exactly kill… more like terribly maim… or mutilate to unrecognizability…"

Nora and Julie both glared at RZ, whose smirk became larger at their expressions. "Just a helpful hint," she said.

"Yeah, helpful as hell," muttered Julie.

"Sorry," said RZ, "next time I'll leave it to you to figure out while you lying on a hospital bed, doctors trying to arrange your face back the right way."

Nora snickered, but Julie continued to glare at RZ. "So I'm guessing you support these guys," she went on, her eyes a strange sort of frost as she watched RZ's reaction carefully.

The smirk went away from RZ's face immediately. A cold look passed over it instead of chilling anger. "You guess wrong," she said in a surprisingly cool tone, her eyes dark and cold, almost expressionless.

Julie wasn't off her back yet though. "Then why are you here?" she challenged. R saw she had a good point. RZ was either here to support the group, or, as a strange coincidence, was here to spy as they were.

"Same reason you are, I guess," said RZ with an uncaring shrug, as if it was no big thing.

"And what would that be?" asked Julie.

"Find out exactly what these idiots have in mind. Then I might join them," she added, "Let them trust me like all the other sides do, and then stab each one of them in the back and leave them to bleed out alone in the darkness."

Just then a horn sounded from the stage. Before Julie could continue, RZ gave her trademark smirk/leer, saying "See ya around, Goldilocks," and disappeared into the large, pressing crowd.

"Strange coincidence," offered R when he saw the dark, irritated look on Julie's face.

"Strange coincidence my ass," she muttered angrily as she passed.

R looked at Nora, still confused at what made Julie so angry. Nora just smirked and shrugged. "Mad she keeps thinking she's finally found a targetable weakness or outright bad thing about RZ, and then RZ having a good excuse for it," she said, "Or so I'd guess. Girls don't like being shown up by other girls, especially not in front of a guy." Nora said the last part with a strange look at R and a wink as she followed Julie.

"Stupid, idiotic, damn bastard…" Julie began muttering as they walked to the edges of the crowd. R tuned his ears out again, but still felt the now-familiar rush of anger at Julie's words against RZ. Trying to forget the nasty things Julie was still muttering under her breath, R watched what was happening on the stage.

The man on the stage took a step forward. The cloak nor hood shuffled even the slightest at the movement. His face was still invisible in the shadow from the hood. His arms were limp and stiff at his sides, and he moved almost mechanically.

"Many of you," the figure said in an alluring, smooth voice that echoed around the room as if they were in a cave, "Are here because you feel as though you're being threatened. You're here because you, like me, agree that 'the change' and 'the cure' is not real, or at least, not permanent.

"I could go on about my own speculations and theories about why the corpses have changed their ways," the man said, walking along the stage now, his voice still smooth and deep, "But to be honest, even I have no true evidence that the corpses aren't changing." At these words, cheers of disapproval rang out. The man was still unaffected though. "All I have," he said, his voice low, and stopped walking, now on the far side of the stage. "Is the theory of nature. Of predator and prey. We are the prey, and we have evolved and limited the predators' food source. As in the way of nature, when the prey evolves, so does the predator. They change," he said, now walking again. "Their appearance. Their attitude. Their ways.

"Like I said when I started, I can only speculate on these matters based on an age-old theory. The one that says predators don't become prey.

"Moving on," he suddenly said. "I am sure some of you must have heard, and if you didn't, here it is, that General Grigio is planning on destroying the wall and letting in more of the corpses." At his words, a deafening cheer of disapproval rang out from the crowd. R cast a glance against the back wall to see RZ leaning up against it looking casual but stiff, her legs crossed and her arms crossed against her chest as she shook her head, a small smirk on her face that suggest she thought everyone here were idiots. She had turned her head the other way, and R was sure she hadn't seen him looking. He turned back towards the stage then, were the man was waiting patiently for the crowd to quiet down.

"Now," he said smoothly once the voices had died away. "I know what you must be feeling now." The man began to slowly pace the stage again. "You're feeling threatened by the monstrosity beyond those walls that is to be let in freely. You're feeling betrayed that you're leader, who for so long told you that the corpses were your enemies, your killers, and the bases of your nightmare, is now saying that they are welcome friends!

"If you're like me," he continued, voice still smooth despite the long speech, "You're also feeling worried, and confused, and scared. You don't have to be. You see, if we get the Act through with enough bent supporters, then General Grigio won't be able to refuse. Power for the sake of wellbeing always comes out above power for the sake of power. With your allegiance this cause will be unstoppable. Power can be handed to the people, and with me as your leader, you will see an era of peace and wellbeing. An era not threatened by the outside world that is now so full of terrible, forsaken threats we have fought against for so long. I will be able to secure more power for each individual citizen- man, women, and child- and make a city that runs on happiness and not the urge to survive against a threat that we are now being told to welcome with open arms and hospitality when all they have shown us is terror and death!"

The man then stopped, no standing in the middle of the stage, as he did when he started his speech. He stared out into the crowd with invisible eyes that were hidden under his dark colored hood. "Many of you," he said quietly, "Are here because you know what is good for you." His eyes then stopped, right on R, Julie, and Nora, the bridge of his nose still low so they couldn't see the top of his face. R felt his heart skip a beat, then began to pound until he was sure it would burst.

"And some of you," he said, "don't belong here."

R would have found it meaningless until the crowd around him dispersed and stared at the trio. R saw people in the same dark hoods coming towards them, silver handcuffs shining as they took them out of their pockets.

"Get them!" One of the hooded men exclaimed loudly, rushing through some of the people in the crowd, creating a path for the few other hooded men behind him..

They were too close, and R knew they wouldn't be able to outrun them. Still, he turned and dashed toward the exit after Julie and Nora. A man was just about to catch the string of his hoodie when the man suddenly gasped and fell back onto the floor, a black knife protruding from the right side of his chest, not on his heart though.

And as they ran through the doors, passing the back wall, R though he saw a few gleams of silver as RZ pressed the right side of her black leather jacket to her side, as if she had reached into the jacket for something…


	8. Play to Their Weakness

A/N: I don't own anything.

Alright, so if anyone has any type of theory or whatever, please put it in a review! This chapter took a really long time to write so I hope you guys like it! And remember- PLEASE REVIEW!

And to Katiex11 and 1 with the pen- thanks for all the support. You guys rock!

Sincerely,

Miss (The) Perfect Bad Example ;-D

!

The trio stood, panting, outside of the Grigio mansion. Julie and Nora were both bent over, hands on their knees, breathing loudly. R was leaning against the post that started the rail for the few steps up to the door. His knees felt weak, as they had kept running until they were back at the mansion, even though they were positive that they weren't being followed by anyone from the Triple A's.

Finally Julie stood up straight, chest still heaving and sweat sticking the loose strands of blond hair that had escaped her ponytail to her bone-white face, the only color was that of the tomato-red splash on her cheeks and top of her forehead. In the back of her mind, she regretted wearing jeans and boots, as her legs now felt as hot as her face.

"Let's… go in-…side," she panted, leaning her head back towards the sky.

"That might be a good idea," said a drawling voice from the street.

The girl's heads all shot up in panic, the thought of being followed still fresh in their minds. R didn't panic as he turned though. He had somehow managed to memorize the voice in only a few days' time, although it felt like he had known it for years…

He snapped himself quickly back to reality, derailing his train of thought at the immediate action. Of course, standing by the street, walking nonchalantly forward as if it were just another peaceful night was RZ. Her arms were crossed casually across her chest, the black leather jacket half-way zipped up and her arms preventing R from seeing anything that might have been hidden in the jacket.

She turned to Nora and Julie with her trademark leering smirk. Her eyes didn't meet the expression, R noticed, they were distant and almost tired-looking, as though she hadn't slept in days- weeks, maybe. It was then he also noticed the dark lines under her eyes that contrasted perfectly with her white features so it was hardly noticeable, and, though there was no wariness in her step or movement, R thought he saw her wince slightly with every step.

"Goldilocks, it's not smart to run away from the bad guys, then not at least get into the house!" RZ said as she walked over. She turned to R with a smirk, "What, planned to wait out for the sun?"

R smiled, "Julie is the sun."

RZ actually laughed- not an evil laugh, but a real chuckle. "Alright, Romeo," she said, turning back to Julie. "Guess your boyfriend's got himself a nickname."

"Ha, ha," said Julie humorlessly. "How funny!"

RZ smiled. "That's the cool thing- it is!" Julie was silent, just glaring at RZ. Finally, RZ said, "What, no comeback?"

Julie shrugged. "Just keep talking, one day you'll say something intelligent."

RZ said, "Hey, I am smart," but her heart didn't seem into the conversation.

Julie used her hand to emphasize her point. "If your brain was chocolate," she said, "It wouldn't fill an M&M."

"Happens to be though," said RZ with a large smirk, "That I ran into the leader of their little club back there. We had a nice, long chat and turns out he's actually got a good plan or two he let slip."

Nora looked shocked. When RZ shrugged and began to turn around, Nora called, "Wait! What do you mean, 'let slip'?"

RZ smiled evilly, the dark strands of her bangs creating shadows on her white face. "With the right words, you can get people to admit anything."

Nora smirk/smile in return. It was obvious that RZ's devious nature appealed to her. "Really?" she asked curiously, then realization crossed her face. She turned eagerly to Julie. "Julie, we have to let her tell your dad that stuff!" she exclaimed.

Julie looked shocked. "What?" she asked, stupefied and staring dumb-struck at Nora. "I really don't think that's a good idea-"

"And neither do I," interrupted RZ.

R caught the looks the three passed. RZ's was one of awkwardness, and Julie shot her a quick look of thanks. Nora shot both of them a look that could kill. "But Julie," whined Nora, "If she has valuable information, then it would be doing the right thing if we told your dad!"

Julie shrugged, looking awkward, and took a step back. "I don't know," she said in an uneager tone, "Dad's probably asleep already, so…"

"Are you kidding!" exclaimed Nora. "It's only like, nine o'clock!"

Julie sighed, realizing she wasn't going to win the argument against Nora, and said, "Fine, but let's get it over with." She began to walk up the steps toward the mansion, Nora leaping to her side, and nodded for RZ to follow them.

RZ walked slowly behind them, and they were near the door when she was halfway up the first flight of steps. R looked up, and saw Julie fumbling to find her key in her blue-jean jacket. Taking the opportunity, he stepped in front of RZ, cutting her off.

She looked up at him with blazing crystal blue-gray eyes. "What the hell?" she hissed, glaring up at him. Even though he was only one step above her, he was a good deal taller, putting her height to only about his chest.

He held out his arm. "Jacket," he demanded quietly, glaring right back at her.

For a moment, RZ looked startled again, like on the first day they'd met- her eyes turning guarded and her face draining of all the white color so it was whiter than paper. "What'd you mean?" she asked in the guarded voice.

R decided to be outright about it. "I saw you pull the knife out of your jacket back in the meeting, and I saw more. I'm not taking any risks," he then said more darkly, "Jacket."

RZ glowered at him as she shrugged out of the leather jacket and threw it into R's chest. She then walked quickly around him and he put the jacket on his arm, only prepared to give it back to RZ after she had left the property.

As soon as he walked through the front door, he placed the jacket on a nearby chair. He then followed the girls, who none but RZ had seen the exchange or noticed the jacket, towards General Grigio's office. Sure enough, Grigio was inside, reading over a form, rubbing his forehead. He looked up when the four teens entered, and glared straight at RZ.

He turned to Julie. "What's she doing here?" he growled to his daughter.

"Nice to see you too, Papa Bear," muttered RZ loud enough for everyone to hear. General Grigio shot her a dark look before turning back to Julie.

Julie turned to RZ then. "Well, go ahead, tell them everything you know- it'll only take ten seconds," Julie smirked.

"General Grigio," said RZ, "I'm sure you've heard of what is being called the Triple A's- or the Anti-Acceptance Association, who are working on something known as the Anti-Acceptance Act. Your daughter and her friends," she swept a hand in Julie's direction, "Snuck into the meeting tonight to attempt to retrieve what they believe to be valuable information. I myself though managed to corner their hooded leader and squeeze out a certain few plots he plans to put to action."

"Go on," said John Grigio.

RZ smiled. "Well, he mentioned something about… when your men are down at the wall with the explosives, to set one of their own, blow it up, thus blowing up the others as well. This would take out a small portion of the wall, but only the bottom part it seems. They plan on using a very controlled explosive they managed to retrieve from somewhere outside the walls."

Grigio gave some sort of a growl. "Fine," he growled. "But don't go on. I'll take this piece of information, and if you're right, I might trust you enough to ask for the rest. Tell me though, when is this taking place, and where?"

"Sometime this week," replied RZ in a bored tone, "First one of a few to happen, or so it sounded like. They plan on making it look like accidents. As for where, well, seemed to be somewhere near the stadium."

"Of course," muttered the General, "The most populated area…"

"I don't think 'most populated' was what he was going for," said RZ.

General Grigio looked at her, his eyes ablaze. "And why do you think that?" he asked in a deathly calm voice, the kind that signaled he was angry.

"He had a lot of supporters, and that means a lot would live near the stadium. He's already promised them peace- and blowing up half the lot wouldn't show very much. I think he wanted to target someplace big- somewhere you'd notice- and something of a landmark. You see, if he can, say, destroy the stadium, then he'd destroy the landmark place that signaled a unity between corpses and you guys. He doesn't want it to become a martyr of sorts though, so I don't have much of a doubt it's going to look like some of the former dead set it off. Playing with the explosives, ya know, make it look like they're not as evolved as we think they are."

"Nice theory," said General Grigio, "But it's only that, a theory."

"Yeah," challenged RZ, "Well theory also said the chance of the dead coming back to life after a limbo between was impossible- yet that happened."

General Grigio narrowed his squinty eyes. "Maybe so," he said darkly, "But one theory proved is like a white marble with a thousand black ones. Trying to find it with only one chance to get it right is a fat way to lose."

"You forget," said RZ, "The factor of risk. It's also been proven that while under pressure, the amount the brain thinks about the risk of it all is greatly lessened. Maybe that should add up on your stress number."

With that, RZ walked out of the room. R heard a shuffle as she grabbed her leather jacket and a door quietly open and close. He expected her to slam the door, but she just closed it softly, almost inaudibly. R was then in a room consisting of just him, Nora, Julie, and the General- just like when they were telling General Grigio about the invitation, plus Nora.

For a moment, General Grigio just glared at his daughter, then he said in the quiet, angry voice- "You snuck off to a meeting in which you were all known targets just to see what the scoundrel had to say!" His voice rose at the end, and R flinched.

Julie looked down. Then she rose her head back up and snapped, "Yeah, because you didn't care enough to do it! Maybe now's the time I should tell you that over half the town's on his side! That he's out to destroy every corpse in or near the city! That he's out to kill you!" Julie then froze on the last words, and shock passed over John's face.

"What?" he asked.

Nora then said, "She's telling the truth. The guy in the hood who was talking said he was going to remove you and take over this town- that your time was… over."

"This man," said General Grigio hardly, "What's he like? What did he talk like, as in words he said, how he framed it?"

"He tried not to stray too far off from his point, and he didn't go into really great detail on his theories for the dead coming back," answered Julie in a loud-like voice. "He spoke to the people like he knew them, but he didn't really associate himself. He just… when he talked… he… he…" Julie was then searching for words to fit the way he spoke to them…

"Played on their weaknesses," answered R softly. All eyes then turned to him, and he felt as he went a little red in the cheeks.

"What was that?" asked General Grigio.

R gulped. "He… he played their weaknesses. You know, talked like he was one of them, pointed out just what made them scared and put himself on top of it all. He took what they were all thinking, reframed it, and then claimed himself the thinker of it. He played them all and they didn't notice."

"Or didn't care," muttered Nora.

General Grigio sighed. "This might be a bigger problem than I thought," he muttered. "Now go, out, all of you!" he said quietly but forcefully. They walked out obligingly.

"Wow," said Nora, "He actually listened."

"I know," said Julie. Watching R walk towards the door, she called bye, and then walked up to her room with Nora at her side.

"Now," said Julie, "There's just one more thing left on my to-do list on what to figure out."

"What?" asked Nora as she sat down in her normal chair. Julie walked over to her bed and sat down on it, the mattress creaking slightly.

"RZ."


	9. Meet RZ

A/N: I own nothing.

Alright guys- sorry this is such a short chapter compared to the others, but I only wanted to get this one scene in it for the suspense factor. If I get a lot of reviews, then I might go ahead and post chapter ten as well.

1 with the pen- I'm a tomboy, so I don't get offended by anything like that (although I did laugh, no offense ;-D) You rock, hope you like this chapter...

R was dreaming again. The moment he closed his eyes, a bright light swept over them instead of darkness that faded into a hospital white. While he was still blinded by the softly fading out light, he heard a voice speak softly in the background- one he couldn't yet pinpoint.

"_Ryder_…-"

When the light became normal, he knew he was back in the hospital. He was watching the boy again, who was still standing over a hospitable bed on one side, and his Aunt Heidi was on the other side. Heather Bones, the lady lying on the bed, had the pink bundle in her arms. She was looking up at the boy the same way she did when the last vision first cut off. R could vaguely hear her words, as the white paint on the walls had turned into a mist-like substance that was now clouding his vision.

"-_meet your_-"

And that was the only part he heard before the mist completely took over his senses, and then he was in another house. It was a small, homely house. Brown and wood seemed to be the main theme of the house, and walking into the room was a girl with long, messy dark hair. She looked about nine years old, and her eyes were a vivid, see-from-a-mile-away blue. She had a book in her hand and was reading it as she walked and sat on the brown couch. Her dark hair fell over her face, and R only saw her lips as they were pulled into a smile from the small book she had in her hand.

The brown on the walls then began to turn into the mist like the white on the hospital wall did. The girl's smile still stood out, and it was the last thing for the brown mist to cover up, though R could still be able to pinpoint the place where it had been. His senses lost once more and unable to move, R then heard the voice of Heather once more, but it had grown whispery, like there were more people saying it in the background.

"-_new sister_-"

The brown mist then turned black and gave way to a new scene. It was a shelf above the fireplace in the same brown room. The boy who had been in the hospital room was gazing at it, standing a few feet away. He was smiling sadly as he looked at the pictures. R knew he must have been going a bit crazy, because he thought the boy now looked somewhat like he did- messy dark hair, vivid blue eyes that matched the girls… The couches were the same shade of brown, and the rug was the same grayish brown color. Hanging over the brown couch was what looked like a red hoodie, but before R could get a better look at it, his vision went over to the shelf.

The pictures on the shelf were that of multiple scenes. A few were from when the boy was younger. In one he was standing arm-in-arm with a blond girl. She had a narrow face, green-blue eyes, and soft ringlet style bright blond hair like Julie did. Her lips were thin and her cheekbones high. She was in a few other pictures as well. There were a few with only her and the younger dark-haired girl. She looked about the same age as the Ryder boy was.

R looked at the pictures more closely. They were like a time-line, the pictures closest to him were the oldest, and those on the other side were obviously more present to this time. Squinting slightly, R looked at the picture furthest away, and it looked like the boy, only taken a few days ago at most.

R then was away the boy had turned around towards the staircase at the back. Sure enough, a girl was walking down, messy dark hair sweeping down her back. Her narrow face had gained a scar across her right eye and her vivid blue eyes were still shiny, though the one with the scar was just a little too shiny seeming.

The girl opened her mouth to say something quickly, but as she did the scene blurred heavily, as did the voices. The brown from the room started to turn into a mist again, and the voice spoke again. This time, it was nothing like the lady, Heather's, voice. It was like a hundred dead people were all whispering it loudly and angrily.

"-_Riley Zoe Caye_."

R shot awake, chest heaving. He was still in his same clothes as the day before, as it seemed as though he had just collapsed on the bed. Thoughts were racing through his mind about what he had just seen. It seemed like a continuing of the hospital-vision he had had. What he couldn't piece together was why he had seen it. The girl though… She'd been in all of it. And now he had her name. He could find her… he could find the Ryder-persons sister. Still though, it didn't seem to add up. R thought over the name more and more, trying to find a way to piece it to why he felt like he should know it.

_Riley Zoe Caye…_

_RZC…_

Suddenly he froze, heart racing.

_RZ._


	10. Piecing Together

Hey, guys. Sorry I haven't uploaded any new chapters for a while. I just moved and it's taken a while to get situated and everything. Hope everybody's had a good few weeks though (mine have been hectic)!

So-

Sincerely,

_The Perfect Bad Example_

#$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$ #$

R sat on his bed, blinking. He remembered the first day that RZ had come into town.

_Last name_, John Grigio had asked.

_Don't use it._

So she didn't use her last name, but had pretty much kept the first letters of both her middle and first name. The Ryder persons' sister had been named Riley Zoe Caye. The initials would have been RZC, but if RZ didn't use her last name, then it just would have been, well, _RZ_. Wherever Ryder or the other person in the pictures was, maybe they didn't even know that RZ was here. Maybe they were a zombie who hadn't gotten their memories back.

Or… maybe they had died in some way other than the plague. Maybe RZ was just…alone, a nomad in the post-apocalypse. She seemed to be skilled in fighting, or at least that's what R would guess from the way she was able to throw the dagger, hit the target with fatal precision, and then go on with no one even seeing that. And she seemed to have negotiation skills, from how she told General Grigio that she had talked the truth out of the cloaked leader of the Triple A's.

Then R swallowed. As he thought, he was wondering how much of it Julie and Nora should know. _All of it_, he finally decided. _I should have told them three days ago. I don't know why I didn't…_

Maybe it was because he felt like his past shouldn't have to be completely retold again for someone else. But Julie wasn't just anybody else.

He breathed in deeply and stood up. Deciding that he couldn't put it off any longer, he got dressed and headed out the door. He made a B-line straight for the Grigio's house, where he knew Julie and Nora would be. As he neared the front door and saw that Julie and Nora were both sitting on the stairs, talking, he suddenly felt a bit nervous. He wondered if Julie would be mad at him for not telling her all of it, but he didn't have time to worry. He knew who RZ was.

"R!"

He hadn't noticed it, but Julie had turned and saw him. Forcing a half smile that looked more like a zombie grimace, he walked towards her and Nora, mumbling a greeting.

"Whazzup?" said Nora in greeting as he went to stand beside Julie. She put her hands in her pockets and looked at him with a questioning look when he didn't respond immediately with a greeting.

R took in a long breath before saying, "I need to tell you guys something." He looked around quickly, and then back to the two girls. They both looked curious and had their brows furrowed, but he continued and said, "It might not be for open ears."

That was the hint. Julie stood up and grabbed his hand. The three walked in the large doors and went up the stairs to Julie's room. The balcony and the bed and all the different dressers were still unchanged. Julie went and sat on the bed with R while Nora sat on a chair right beside the bed.

"What is it?" asked Julie curiously. She crossed her arms and her legs. She used her feet to slide off her snow boots that she had been wearing with her pale blue jeans and looked at him questioningly. Her eyes sparkled in the half-light and she looked truly intrigued.

"It's about RZ," R responded, "And some about me, but I can't piece it together…"

He saw Julie's face go blank for a second before she said, "What do you mean?" with a small laugh.

R took a deep breath, "I mean… three nights ago, I started to remember my past…" He went on to describe the hospital, the girl, and the attack. "Then two nights ago," he continued, "I had a dream, or a vision, or whatever they are, about this boy, and there was a little newborn. It cut off before I could get the name though. And then last night, I had a… continuing of the last vision," and he explained the voices, and the mysterious slides.

"The girls name was Riley Zoe Caye," he said as he ended it, "Her initials were RZC, but RZ said she-"

"Doesn't use her last name," said Nora in amazement, blinking her eyes.

"Yeah," R said with a strained laugh.

"And that means," said Julie, "That she's Riley Zoe Caye."

R nodded. "I can't really think of any other possibility. But I still don't know why I would see that, of all things. I don't know how or why I would want to know about her."

"R," said Julie with a smile, "In the first of your dreams, you were with a girl with dark hair. A younger girl. What if she was your sister?"

"And Julie said RZ freaked out when she saw your scar," said Nora, "Maybe she knows you or something. Maybe that's why she was startled to see you, ya know, alive!"

"I like that theory," said Julie with a smile. "And I can't really think of any other reason she would react like that. It's really the only way that makes any sort of sense."

"But then where's Zoe?" asked Nora suddenly.

"I don't know," sighed R.

"Maybe RZ killed her or something?" Julie offered with a gleam in her eyes.

Nora shot her a glare. "I don't really know, it's just a guess anyways. But I'll bet that RZ does."

"Yeah!" said Julie, jumping off the bed, "Let's go find her!"

Nora stood up and they headed for the door, but then R blocked their way. "No," he said, "I'd rather talk to her alone, besides," he said, looking at Julie, "I doubt she'd say anything with an audience."

"I guess you're right," sighed Julie walked back to the bed and sitting down, "But as soon as she tells you, promise you'll come straight back and tell us." She looked back up at him with hope in her eyes, and R gave a small grin, wondering why she would even bothering asking that. He crossed the room in a few steps and went to stand by the door, only stopping once to answer Julie's question.

"I will," said R. He turned and opened up the door, closing it behind him. The hallway was quiet, and so were the stairs, and the main floor. It was like a ghost house. He went out the door and walked down the street until he came to the market square.

The market seemed a bit busier than usual today. He saw a few soldiers walking around with guns strapped to their backs, only stopping occasionally to talk with a civilian. People mulled around- talking with each other, buying from the sellers, and selling things that they might be able to trade for things they needed. As he neared the center of the square, it became hard to tell different faces, as they all blurred together. Since so many of the former dead had rejoined society, more and more people had been visiting the square. It shouldn't have been very hard to see RZ's face in the crowd, but he was unable to locate it, though he was sure that she would be there.

Soon, when he had walked nearly the entire center of the market square, the crowds around him began to thin out. He neared the cart where RZ had stolen the red apple when no one was watching, except for him, that was. He continually looked around, looking for RZ. She was nowhere to be seen though. The crowds were already becoming thicker, and then, just as he was about to completely give up for the day, he saw a small, skinny girl with a black leather jacket, jeans, combat boots, and a halfway tied red shirt with a gray undershirt. She was walking with her head down towards R.

He looked around and saw a deserted gray street on the other side of the alley. Whether it was fate or just a stroke of amazingly good luck, RZ turned into the alley and began walking down it at a quick pace, her hands in the front pockets of the dark jeans.

R followed her, trying not to look very obvious. He caught up to her at the end of the alley and grabbed her wrist.

She spun around and glared at her attacker, trying to yank her wrist back. "What the-" She stopped when she saw who it was and glared at him with calculating eyes.

"I want the truth," he said in a low voice, "And I want it _now_."


	11. Reasoning Behind It All

Hey, guys. I said I'm sorry for not updating- like I said, I was moving and it was a really big move. It took a long time to pack, unpack, etc. So I am so, so, so, so, so sorry.

1 with the pen: Please forgive me! I'm so sorry for not updating. Hopeful this will answer a lot of your questions.

This was a really hard chapter to write, so please forgive me if things seem really weird. I decided if it was out there enough for zombies to fall in love, then it's okay with this. I own nothing, by the way, except RZ.

-The First Day In The Stadium City-

RZ did not scare easily.

Really, it was true. She wasn't scared when one of her assassination missions went wrong and she found herself held hostage. She wasn't scared when she found herself facing five warriors when she was all alone and weaponless. She wasn't scared when a fire raged through the twenty-eight story building she was in and the only way of escape was through the window of the floor she was on, which happened to be the twenty eighth floor. And she wasn't scared when she jumped out and found herself in a deserted city, all alone with a fire behind her and a dagger in her hand with her bottom leg bone jutting three inches out of her knee skin.

No, RZ didn't scare easily. And she definitely wasn't scared when she saw a strange man who held himself high narrow his eyes at her as she stood by the apple cart, pretending to admire the fruits while she was really slinking her hand towards them one at a time and snatching them- shoving them into the pocket of her brother's old leather jacket. It really was an old jacket, she thought, she was eighteen, and her brother had left right before her eleventh birthday for a secret mission, promising to return on her birthday. He never came back, and a week and a half after her birthday a family friend- Angie- had returned, bringing with her a nicely folded letter.

"Our most sincere condolences," said RZ in a mocking voice of a high lady, having memorized the letter, "The loss of any soldier is hard not only for the members of their team, but for their family. We hereby offer you a reward to compensate for you horrible loss, and you are free to claim it whenever you like.

RZ smirked as she continued, "Not only was the loss of one soldier reported in this battle. A number of others have died, and we are horrified to report that the mission was a failure and the soldiers had been ordered a retreat. The retreat of any mission is terrible and dishonorable, but one from the center command of enemy lines is truly dishonoring and embarrassing.

"We are sorry for your loss.

"Sincerely, Mary Bythilden."

RZ said the last words with utter hate. She had personal experience with Mrs. Bythilden, oh, yes. It was a wonder to think that the irony of it was she had been her first assassination target…

RZ worker for an agency of such, as had her brother and as does Angie DeGracio. The agency was secret. It was on an island and had tons of smaller bases that looked like normal cities here and there. The island- known as Cosia- was planted a little off the American side of the Pacific Ocean. There was another island who had waged war with them, but worked the same way. (Her brother later told her it was because the other island wanted to expose everything magical that the islands worked to keep secret so they could take over the normal humans) The smaller bases were called City-Bases. The island itself was reserved for anyone under the age of twenty-five. Once you reached the age, you had to leave and live in the City-Bases. Simple as that. There was the whole leader thing though. There was a leader on the island, and a co-leader who took over if they died, and a third leader who took over the second position if the second-in-charge died.

Her brother, Ryder, had been the leader. His best friend Angie had been the co-leader, and his friend Chad Enozio- who went by a portion of his last name, Eno- had been the third in charge. Pretty nice.

RZ hadn't found out about it until she was nine. Until then all she knew was that her brother was in the military, she couldn't see her mother, and her Aunt Heidi couldn't tell her anything more than Ryder had.

Though, when Ryder told her everything, he also told her something else. He asked her if she remembered the news all those times it had spoken of a 'serial killer' who killed people, and when the bodies were found, it turned out they worked for Mafias, gangs, or the 'other island', which people didn't know about. He told her that he was the one- the killer- who'd gone after them all. (He also said Angie helped, though she feverishly denied it and everything having to do with it) When RZ asked why, he just told it was because of Dad. It sparked an interest for her.

So, having been unable to choke anything out of him before he died, she went looking. She soon discovered the truth. Her 'father' was the leader of that Mafia/Gang thing and over the other island. He was bent on raising the Dead World (also known as the underworld, though the Land Of Light could be considered the 'Heaven' part of it. Either way, you went there when you died) and using it to take over the human world. He succeeded in raising a deformed, less powerful version of the Hell Souls (what we call 'Zombies' if we ever saw them) that he called Corpses. He released what he had managed to rise, and then it began to bite others, and thus began the apocalypse, though it happened nearly a year ago.

A few days after she found that out, she met someone else. A strange, happy, middle-aged man in a pinstriped coat and old fashioned slacks. When she asked him who he was, he said, "My name is Grim Reaper, but you can call me Grim." When she asked him why he didn't look like he always did in the pictures, he just laughed and said, "I'm not a _real_ Reaper. I have a Guardian of the Doors of the Dead World who does that. He keeps souls in and he puts them there. _He's_ the one you're thinking of!" He later explained why he met her there. According to him, there were three parts of the Dead World you could go to. Light, Dark, and Lost. Light was Heaven. Dark was Hell. Lost was for the souls who were never supposed to be born in the first place.

Upon further questioning, he finally told her more interesting things. About herself. Apparently there had originally be two rulers, one for light, one for dark. The Light went missing, and his sister, the dark, literally fell into Darkness- disappeared. She left saying she would be reincarnated when the world needed it most, and he was sure RZ was the one.

And it turns out that RZ could do things- strange things. Confuse people, make them hurt, make them cold, speak with serpents, raise a door to the underworld, and go into the underworld whenever she wanted. Technically, she guessed that she was ruler of the Dark, but Grim hadn't been certain. He said only the Queen would last in the position. Most others who thought it died early.

RZ could walk through the Dead World without being worried of attack. The only ones who might hurt her were the Demons- like Misery and Pain- or Grim's locked up brother- Sinister.

Almost two years ago, she had left the Dead World though. She left, and didn't look back. She was sixteen when she did that. For a year, she kept her alliance with Cosia, before she left there as well. She never responded to Angie, and she just went around, doing whatever. The officials in the Dead World hated her for it, wanting her to solve all their problems.

And then she found herself here. It was then she noticed the man with the narrowed eyes pick up his phone, call someone, then put it up and walk over to her.

"Sup," she said as he neared, putting a hand to her hip.

He narrowed his eyes further, and for a while, they stood like that, eyeing the enemy.

Then two more people walked over. One was a blond who RZ didn't trust the looks of, and the other was… she looked a bit closer and laughed at herself, keeping a neutral smirk on her face, answering what the guy asked her, keeping an eye on the boy. She could've sworn that she knew someone with the same dark hair, bright eyes… but no, it couldn't be, there was no.

She paused in what she was saying, staring at him. Right there on his chin was a scar, and things suddenly clicked into place so fast that her head hurt and she felt like she might be sick from the way her stomach was tossing and turning.

It was the same scar Ryder had. The one that Dad gave him.


End file.
